Facebook empowers the poor to go beyond bedroom, Betty Makoni

Last week I posted a status update to my personal Facebook page for my friends. I have 5000 and close to 3000 subscribers. A lot of times I post messages with something that can inspire my friends. I have a constituency and a base for my activism. Most of my friends emerged from the poorest social class like me. I post messages in Shona because I studied my native language Shona, to degree level and am very knowledgeable about how it can be better understood by fellow Zimbabweans and create campaigns grounded to our situations. I feel good writing in Shona idioms, symbolism and using language that is grounded to my friends` experiences and way of life. My knowledge of Sociolinguistics makes it imperative for me to look for language discourse that defines certain targets especially the poor. I know how to put humour and mix it with seriousness of purpose and use such language to persuade some of my friends to self-discover. As I explained before, my purpose of being on earth is to inspire so that women and girls dream bigger. I also touch the lives of good men and boys. This is something I love doing and I started this when I was a child vendor at age 6.

I started a series of status updates called Gospel for poor children where I post messages to constantly remind poor children and their families to break vicious cycles of poverty. Sometimes I am very didactic giving many life lessons while other times I use irony of situation and sarcasm and it all depends on how deep the message should touch them.

Last week I posted five messages under Gospel for poor children where I tried to raise awareness on how Facebook can change their lives if they use it beyond sex and bedroom. As someone who grew up poor and as a street vendor, I strongly feel that Facebook could be a place of opportunity where someone can self-teach through many people forming groups on developmental issues. Many inspirational quotes, scholarship opportunities, jobs, business ideas and just life saving information is posted every minute and rarely do some poor people take interest. I also know of many poor people from my country in Zimbabwe who are on Facebook who could take advantage and use Facebook to connect globally. It is expensive to buy airtime and get to be connected to the rest of the world and so I salute efforts to connect.

I advised some poor people in my Zimbabwean community to think beyond spending all energy on being obsessed with sex and posting pornographic materials. I never said anyone should stop posting messages on so called sex education as that is unstoppable. I never said anyone should stop the so called sex education and even though those who have done it for over a decade claim they are still learning. What is disturbing however, is how those obsessed with sex have taken it upon themselves to attack whoever is not married a virgin especially women and girls. Daily, there is a woman or girl who is being attacked for poor sexual performance. Vulgar language is used and women and girls are the ones who are blamed for everything. Obsession is evident in men who have stopped going to work and sitting all day to comment and harass women on sexual matters making an idle mind a very dangerous one too. This is not sex education and those who open the Facebook pages are not experts in sex and reproductive health and sometimes give wrong information. Vaginal tightening herbs are prescribed which can be detrimental to women`s health. The advice is posted in such a manner one would think sex and misinforming public is only thing we can do as Zimbabwean society.

To cut long story short . An undercover journalist from Newsdzezimbabwe came to my Facebook and pulled down my status update and decided to alter my original posting. My message was reposted on their news site without interviewing me. The tone of my message was twisted to sensationalise it. I have many professional journalists from Afro News who cover what I post on my Facebook and they always inbox me to approve an article. To think someone pulled my status update to get hits on their website is sad. Abusing my name is equally bad.

The good part is that I have started a life campaign called NEVER AGAIN and this comes from the title of my autobiography. Never again should bogus websites abuse us . I have my own websites and blogs and Facebook. I am empowered to speak for myself. I will not allow the abuse and so demand Newsdzezimbabwe to bring my status update back.It is mine and they cant make news from it. Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar. I am empowered to deliver my news to the world via respected news sites. Now there are two or so people who are commenting on this site and being vulgar. I ask them to stop it.

One thing for certain is that we women who come from countries where news was centralised and where our messages are twisted now stand up with empowerment social networks like Facebook and many others to speak our minds. We don’t want anyone to speak for us and twist our words. Below is how a response came via Proudly Zimbabwean Facebook page and it is from a young woman who was there and who is there on my Facebook.

Please let me speak to the poor. I know them as I have been one of them and I am still in poor communities working daily. Now social media empowers us and leave us to use it to the betterment of our lives. Period. Beyond obsession with sex are bigger visions that can develop our families and communities.

Below is a response from Delta one of my FB friends and she puts it straight to the point. Below are comments from friends who follow me. I could not have out it better. What a great communications and PR persona this young Zimbabwean woman is.

Delta Milayo Ndou Actually the website picked up her status update from her Facebook profile and then used it to write a story that is misleading. The whole story is a quote of her status update she was NOT slamming Zimbabweans, she was not slamming anyone actually but was making an observation and specifically addressing her FB friends not the whole nation of Zimbabwe. Now she is being blasted by Zimbabweans retaliating to being ‘slammed’ when she didn’t even write her remarks to address every Zimbabwean. It is very disingenuous of these half-baked websites to just trawl the internet and pick people’s views out of context just to rabble rouse. And to be fair, we all have a right to parade our thoughts in their nudity on our FB profiles for the benefit of the audience we choose by accepting FB friendship requests without having some uncouth individuals taking it upon themselves to make that the basis of a story. Talk about a storm in tea cup! She’s not banning anyone from spending their days obsessing over sex on FB if that’s what they want. And she doesn’t need to be a life coach to express a view point. Disagree with her if you like but take into account that her remarks had nothing to with slamming anything or slamming anyone. Some so-called online journalists are good at setting the cat among the pigeons to drive traffic to their dubious websites.
Delta Milayo Ndou
I am not very bothered about the fact that they published her FB status update but I am irritated by the framing and slanting and angling and deliberately manipulative contextualization of her remarks wherein they get to blatantly lie and s
ay she was making the remarks with the intent to ‘slam’ Zimbabweans. Its not true that she was slamming Zimbabweans, they get to misrepresent her motives and open her up to public abuse by giving her remarks negative, and even malicious, connotations. FB is a public space and the expectation of privacy is largely determined by the privacy settings one activates on their profile and the careful, deliberate screening of who they choose to ‘befriend’ so indeed, status updates are fair game but journalistic ethics of balance should be observed rather than deliberately misrepresenting a person’s views in a way that casts aspersion upon their person. And I don’t know, that with her high profile Betty could qualify to be among us the ‘ordinary, harmless folk’….lol

Below is wrongly plagiarised status update by the newspaper called Newsdzezimbabwe

Muzvare Betty Makoni Online

Betty Makoni (BA Gen, BA Special Hons) is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Girl Child Network Worldwide an international charity registered in the UK. Recently she was selected to be in the team of experts for Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative was officially launched on 30 January 2013 by the UK Foreign Office. She joins the team as a Gender Based Violence expert. In her many high profile titles, millions across the world passionately call her CNN Hero as she was the top in 2009 category for Protecting the Powerless and was honoured by Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman. Betty Makoni might be the highest honoured and awarded African woman in the world with 40 local, regional and global awards for innovation, commitment and passion for her work to protect over 300,000 girls in Zimbabwe.

Recent Posts: Betty Makoni Official Autobiography

Special Message from NisNis Stevenson in USA – a woman with passion for girls in Africa Hello Betty….guess what I am reading these days??? Your awesome book “NEVER AGAIN”…finally ordered and have not been able to put it down since I started…very gripping and powerful….it is a must read! I feel even more empowered now!!! Thank you […]

POST EVENT PRESS RELEASE ~ ‘NEVER AGAIN’ ROYAL PURPLE NIGHT OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF BETTY MAKONI’S AUTO-BIOGRAPHY & FUNDRAISING DINNER FOR GIRL CHILD NETWORK CHARITY For Immediate Release The usually quiet small town of Thurrock, ensconced in the suburb countryside of Essex, United Kingdom was awakened agog with activities on Sat 13th April 2013 as people […]